Cousins at the Game

Yesterday was the Jazz's final home game of the regular season. They played the LA Clippers, which normally wouldn't be anything to fret about, but they lost to the Timberwolves at home, the Golden State Warriors at home, and lost road games by twenty points in the past couple weeks, so there was reason for concern. Em and I even thought about boycotting the Jazz to make a statement, but alas, we had planned for a few weeks to have a Cousin Jazz Night--me, Emily, our cousin Phaedra, and our cousin Karen, who has never been to a Jazz game!! We overlooked the fact that she is from Denver and sadly a McNuggets fan, because family is family. And we also wanted this totally awesome picture of us, all in our Jazz jerseys, to send to our Grandma.


The night of course started at Applebee's by the arena, where we've met numerous times before a game to eat and talk about the Jazz (Kyle Korver to be more exact, as Em and Phaedra are quite smitten with him!). We even had a surpirse guest at the table behind us as my mom showed up with a co-worker and the boss's unused lower-bowl seats!




We all commented how the arena (I still refuse to call it by it's new name; it will always be the Delta Center to me) felt different, had a better energy to it. We just knew they were going to win. We couldn't let our minds go to the if they lost place, so we thought good thoughts and gave them good energy...and they WON!! They were a completely different team, helped, I think, by the surprising start of Matt Harpring. He definitely needs to start tonight as they go against the Lakers, and when they start the playoffs. He's a 32-year-old "veteran", but plays with so much energy and toughness and determination that he is definitely a starter.

Super fun night, and hopefully Karen enjoyed her first Jazz game as much as we enjoyed the Jazz's first win in five games.

My Day As an Extra

For those who don't remember, I mentioned that I was an extra one day on set. And since I got the pictures of my day as a movie star from the set photographer, I decided to let you all know about my time in the spotlight. It was a lot of work trying to be a PA and an extra, especially wearing those scrubs; they don't have near enough pockets for all the crap I had to carry around. But man, were they comfortable!

Peter, the 2nd AD, asked me the day before if I'd like to be a nurse extra for our hospital scenes the following day. I of course asked a very important question--Am I a slutty nurse or a regular nurse? It is a kid's movie, so of course I was just playing a regular nurse! And so I agreed to help out the production. Yep, I'm a sucker. And I was the only sucker on the crew--Peter went around asking almost everyone on the crew if they wanted to be an extra the next day and I was the only one who said yes. This was near the end of shooting and the budget was becoming quite the issue, so their way of saving on costs was to get crew to be extras, meaning they wouldn't have to expend money on actual extras.

I must say that it's harder than it looks being an extra. We're constantly telling them to not look at the camera or stare at the actors in the scene, but I must admit that all I wanted to do was look at the actors and the action going on while rolling and had to remind myself to not look at them as they passed me. We're also telling them to pantomime and fake talk so as to not mess up the recording of the actors talking, but I felt very foolish pretending to talk on the phone and pantomiming writing and typing, especially with the crew seeing me. We're always telling them it'll be just a moment and to wait patiently, we're almost ready to roll. But that's usually a lie, as being an extra means a lot of just waiting. And once I took my walkie off--because we were "close to rolling"--I had no idea what was going on. And when "rolling" was finally called, on instinct I still wanted to yell "Rolling!" and "cut!", but was told by Peter that it wasn't necessary!

And when the scene was done and we were moving on, instead of being able to relax, grab a few snacks, I was back into PA mode, talking on the walkie, grabbing batteries, escorting actors and working. Working double duty is kind of a hassle, as I felt rather useless while I was being used as an extra because I knew there were other things I could have been doing. But it was a fun experience, and perhaps I'll see myself on the big screen....if my scenes don't get cut!

Basketball at the Movies

If you can't make it to Dallas for the Jazz/Mavs matchup, what's the next best thing? That would be the movie theater at Jordan Commons, of course. My fabulous cousin Phaedra, who is just as big a Jazz fan as my sister and me (probably more than me, with her obsession with KK!) reserved tickets for the three of us to participate in the first ever Jazz game broadcast at the theater! Let me just tell ya that there's nothing cooler than watching a game in a packed movie theater.

Unfortunately, though, the game was awful, with the Jazz losing by 29 points, thus making my "Number 1" finger a rather silly gesture.

It was a little hard to watch at times, but we stuck it out to the very end. The game may have been a bust, but we still had a good time, complete with popcorn, a raffle that I was thisclose to winning, Jazz dancers, David Locke liking the sound of his voice a bit too much, and Memo andKorver on the big screen.
And, perhaps my newest basketball player crush, Juan Barea. He was pretty awesome last night.

Flip Flop

Today is the first flip-flop day of the year. That's right, instead of wearing socks and shoes today is warm enough that I'm able to wear flip-flops. This is a rather momentous occasion, as it signals the coming of spring and summer and fun times. I'm ecstatic about it! I'm also wearing a skirt. Hopefully the warm weather is here to stay....

Running Like a Fool

Like the fool that I am, I registered for the Salt Lake City Marathon's 5k event. It's on April 18th and is the reason I'm staying in Salt Lake for such a long time after my work was done. This will be my third time doing it, and when I first did it in 2006 I had dreams of getting better every year, going from the 5k to the half marathon and eventually to the marathon. Sadly, this has not happened; I actually ran slower the second year I did it! But I'm back this year after missing last year, and I must say that I am definitely a fool. I haven't been running for quite some time and am trying to cram it all in in just two weeks. I don't think it'll work out all that well, but I knew that I couldn't just wake up the morning of and try to do it.

So I've been running (I should really call it jogging, or walking fast) three times since registering a week ago. Since I don't live near a track like I do in New York, I have to settle for running along the sidewalk in the neighborhood. This is slightly embarrassing for me, as I don't like exercising in front of random people, but I'm slowly getting over that each day. And it's a good thing I'm at least trying to train for it, because that first run was pretty brutal; I didn't make it very far without panting and the deep desire to stop. But it's been getting a little better with each run, and hopefully by the time race day comes I'll be somewhat better prepared for it. Because really, I'm just doing it for the free t-shirt.

Happy Birthday Ivy

Yesterday was my niece Ivy's 8th birthday. She's just like me in that she loves her birthday and all the hoopla surrounding it, including presents, dinner and attention. While I normally shy away from any kind of attention except on my birthday, Ivy is sort of a drama queen all the time. But when it's your birthday it doesn't matter; when it's your birthday you call the shots and can do whatever you want.

So where did Ivy want to eat? Applebee's. And what did she want to do? Go to the Jazz game. Well, that was actually grandma's idea, but Ivy was pretty much completely cool with it. We went to the Applebee's by the arena, where Ivy was sang to by the waiters, got free ice cream, opened presents, and was the center of attention as she wore a crown from the card Em and I bought her (because she's a Princess! I took a picture...I'll post it later). And after all that was done we headed to the arena for the Jazz game.

Never mind that the Jazz are pretty much going into flames at the moment--none of that matters to an 8-year-old girl. She was just excited to be there with Daddy, JoJo and Grandma. My mom got four tickets for down low from a co-worker while Emily and I were up top. Since they were so close to the action, I told Ivy that she had a very good chance of getting on the big screen. You see, I came awfully close to getting on it during the previous game but missed it by a couple rows. But Ivy, with her crown, Boozer jersey and homemade sign that read "Go Jazz Go" and "Go Jazz Bear!", was sure to get on--they love the kids. I told her to dance and wave her sign whenever there was a timeout. And you know what, the birthday girl got on the big screen!! I could see her dancing from my seat up top, and then all of a sudden she was up there on the screen, too! It was so exciting and quite the cap for the day! Happy Birthday babe, love ya.

Down Time

You guys sure are getting a lot of posts about my time working on Snowmen. Since being done with it, I now have the time and energy to finally write about it! Plus, it's easier to reminisce and feel good about the experience when I'm not in the thick of it, getting up at five in the morning, standing all day, watching kids, and being cold.

Working on a movie set comes with a lot of downtime. We're there for at least twelve hours--we can't possibly have enough things to do to fill all that time with work. As a PA, it's frowned upon if you sit down, but there are many times when you're just standing there with nothing to do. The trick, and fun, is to find ways to make yourself look like you're busy and doing something; carry around some extra prelims or call sheets, always have batteries somewhere on your body, move around from one place to another, and always say Copy and Looking when talked to on the radio. Everyone had different ways of keeping themselves busy so as to not go completely insane with boredom...






Don't let these pictures fool you though; we all worked awfully hard, sometimes in extreme cold and other times in extreme heat. And in between all that downtime we found the time to make a movie!